A tale of Two Cities

XIV. The Knitting Done
I
n that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited their fate Madame
Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance and Jacques Three of
the Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge confer with
these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, erst a mender of roads. The
sawyer himself did not participate in the conference, but abided at a little
distance, like an outer satellite who was not to speak until required, or to offer an
opinion until invited.
“But our Defarge,” said Jacques Three, “is undoubtedly a good Republican?
Eh?”
“There is no better,” the voluble Vengeance protested in her shrill notes, “in
France.”
“Peace, little Vengeance,” said Madame Defarge, laying her hand with a slight
frown on her lieutenant's lips, “hear me speak. My husband, fellow-citizen, is a
good Republican and a bold man; he has deserved well of the Republic, and
possesses its confidence. But my husband has his weaknesses, and he is so weak
as to relent towards this Doctor.”
“It is a great pity,” croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his head, with
his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth; “it is not quite like a good citizen; it is a
thing to regret.”
“See you,” said madame, “I care nothing for this Doctor, I. He may wear his
head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one to me. But, the
Evremonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and child must follow
the husband and father.”
“She has a fine head for it,” croaked Jacques Three. “I have seen blue eyes
and golden hair there, and they looked charming when Samson held them up.”
Ogre that he was, he spoke like an epicure.
Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little.
“The child also,” observed Jacques Three, with a meditative enjoyment of his
words, “has golden hair and blue eyes. And we seldom have a child there. It is a
pretty sight!”
“In a word,” said Madame Defarge, coming out of her short abstraction, “I

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cannot trust my husband in this matter. Not only do I feel, since last night, that I
dare not confide to him the details of my projects; but also I feel that if I delay,
there is danger of his giving warning, and then they might escape.”
“That must never be,” croaked Jacques Three; “no one must escape. We have
not half enough as it is. We ought to have six score a day.”
“In a word,” Madame Defarge went on, “my husband has not my reason for
pursuing this family to annihilation, and I have not his reason for regarding this
Doctor with any sensibility. I must act for myself, therefore. Come hither, little
citizen.”
The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself in the submission,
of mortal fear, advanced with his hand to his red cap.
“Touching those signals, little citizen,” said Madame Defarge, sternly, “that
she made to the prisoners; you are ready to bear witness to them this very day?”
“Ay, ay, why not!” cried the sawyer. “Every day, in all weathers, from two to
four, always signalling, sometimes with the little one, sometimes without. I
know what I know. I have seen with my eyes.”
He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in incidental imitation of
some few of the great diversity of signals that he had never seen.
“Clearly plots,” said Jacques Three. “Transparently!”
“There is no doubt of the Jury?” inquired Madame Defarge, letting her eyes
turn to him with a gloomy smile.
“Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness. I answer for my fellow-
Jurymen.”
“Now, let me see,” said Madame Defarge, pondering again. “Yet once more!
Can I spare this Doctor to my husband? I have no feeling either way. Can I spare
him?”
“He would count as one head,” observed Jacques Three, in a low voice. “We
really have not heads enough; it would be a pity, I think.”
“He was signalling with her when I saw her,” argued Madame Defarge; “I
cannot speak of one without the other; and I must not be silent, and trust the case
wholly to him, this little citizen here. For, I am not a bad witness.”
The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in their fervent
protestations that she was the most admirable and marvellous of witnesses. The
little citizen, not to be outdone, declared her to be a celestial witness.
“He must take his chance,” said Madame Defarge. “No, I cannot spare him!
You are engaged at three o'clock; you are going to see the batch of to-day

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executed.—You?”
The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer, who hurriedly replied in the
affirmative: seizing the occasion to add that he was the most ardent of
Republicans, and that he would be in effect the most desolate of Republicans, if
anything prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of smoking his afternoon
pipe in the contemplation of the droll national barber. He was so very
demonstrative herein, that he might have been suspected (perhaps was, by the
dark eyes that looked contemptuously at him out of Madame Defarge's head) of
having his small individual fears for his own personal safety, every hour in the
day.
“I,” said madame, “am equally engaged at the same place. After it is over—
say at eight to-night—come you to me, in Saint Antoine, and we will give
information against these people at my Section.”
The wood-sawyer said he would be proud and flattered to attend the
citizeness. The citizeness looking at him, he became embarrassed, evaded her
glance as a small dog would have done, retreated among his wood, and hid his
confusion over the handle of his saw.
Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The Vengeance a little nearer to
the door, and there expounded her further views to them thus:
“She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his death. She will be
mourning and grieving. She will be in a state of mind to impeach the justice of
the Republic. She will be full of sympathy with its enemies. I will go to her.”
“What an admirable woman; what an adorable woman!” exclaimed Jacques
Three, rapturously. “Ah, my cherished!” cried The Vengeance; and embraced
her.
“Take you my knitting,” said Madame Defarge, placing it in her lieutenant's
hands, “and have it ready for me in my usual seat. Keep me my usual chair. Go
you there, straight, for there will probably be a greater concourse than usual, to-
day.”
“I willingly obey the orders of my Chief,” said The Vengeance with alacrity,
and kissing her cheek. “You will not be late?”
“I shall be there before the commencement.”
“And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there, my soul,” said The
Vengeance, calling after her, for she had already turned into the street, “before
the tumbrils arrive!”
Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that she heard, and might

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be relied upon to arrive in good time, and so went through the mud, and round
the corner of the prison wall. The Vengeance and the Juryman, looking after her
as she walked away, were highly appreciative of her fine figure, and her superb
moral endowments.
There were many women at that time, upon whom the time laid a dreadfully
disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more to be dreaded than
this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets. Of a strong and
fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination, of that
kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its possessor firmness and
animosity, but to strike into others an instinctive recognition of those qualities;
the troubled time would have heaved her up, under any circumstances. But,
imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate
hatred of a class, opportunity had developed her into a tigress. She was
absolutely without pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone
out of her.
It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his
forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her, that his wife was
to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was insufficient
punishment, because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such
had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made hopeless by her having no sense
of pity, even for herself. If she had been laid low in the streets, in any of the
many encounters in which she had been engaged, she would not have pitied
herself; nor, if she had been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would she have gone
to it with any softer feeling than a fierce desire to change places with the man
who sent her there.
Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough robe. Carelessly worn,
it was a becoming robe enough, in a certain weird way, and her dark hair looked
rich under her coarse red cap. Lying hidden in her bosom, was a loaded pistol.
Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened dagger. Thus accoutred, and walking
with the confident tread of such a character, and with the supple freedom of a
woman who had habitually walked in her girlhood, bare-foot and bare-legged,
on the brown sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way along the streets.
Now, when the journey of the travelling coach, at that very moment waiting
for the completion of its load, had been planned out last night, the difficulty of
taking Miss Pross in it had much engaged Mr. Lorry's attention. It was not
merely desirable to avoid overloading the coach, but it was of the highest
importance that the time occupied in examining it and its passengers, should be
reduced to the utmost; since their escape might depend on the saving of only a

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few seconds here and there. Finally, he had proposed, after anxious
consideration, that Miss Pross and Jerry, who were at liberty to leave the city,
should leave it at three o'clock in the lightest-wheeled conveyance known to that
period. Unencumbered with luggage, they would soon overtake the coach, and,
passing it and preceding it on the road, would order its horses in advance, and
greatly facilitate its progress during the precious hours of the night, when delay
was the most to be dreaded.
Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real service in that pressing
emergency, Miss Pross hailed it with joy. She and Jerry had beheld the coach
start, had known who it was that Solomon brought, had passed some ten minutes
in tortures of suspense, and were now concluding their arrangements to follow
the coach, even as Madame Defarge, taking her way through the streets, now
drew nearer and nearer to the else-deserted lodging in which they held their
consultation.
“Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss Pross, whose agitation
was so great that she could hardly speak, or stand, or move, or live: “what do
you think of our not starting from this courtyard? Another carriage having
already gone from here to-day, it might awaken suspicion.”
“My opinion, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “is as you're right. Likewise wot
I'll stand by you, right or wrong.”
“I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious creatures,” said Miss
Pross, wildly crying, “that I am incapable of forming any plan. Are 
you
capable
of forming any plan, my dear good Mr. Cruncher?”
“Respectin' a future spear o' life, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “I hope so.
Respectin' any present use o' this here blessed old head o' mine, I think not.
Would you do me the favour, miss, to take notice o' two promises and wows wot
it is my wishes fur to record in this here crisis?”
“Oh, for gracious sake!” cried Miss Pross, still wildly crying, “record them at
once, and get them out of the way, like an excellent man.”
“First,” said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and who spoke with an
ashy and solemn visage, “them poor things well out o' this, never no more will I
do it, never no more!”
“I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher,” returned Miss Pross, “that you never will do
it again, whatever it is, and I beg you not to think it necessary to mention more